Twenty eight years after the release of Tron, Hollywood is coming
out with a sequel that will surely be packed to the gills with special effects. But can the new Tron Legacy movie beat the groundbreaking original? Do you remember the old one? (Heck, were you born yet?)

3. Part of Tron was filmed at the Lawrence Livermore Lab. It's the
only movie ever filmed inside the famed lab, and probably for
a good reason. During filming there, Cindy Morgan
(who played Yori) actually stepped into a radioactive spill and had to
have her shoes removed and decontaminated. (Source)

4. Back then, many Disney animators were wary of computer animation and feared
that it would replace them, so they refused to work on Tron.

5. If you think Tron was pure CGI, you'd be forgiven. It was
mostly old school effects and matte paintings. The glowing circuitry on
the character's costumes? Those were hand-painted onto each frame.

At the time, computers could generate static image but not animation,
so the coordinates for each image in the light cycle scene had to be entered
by hand for each individual frame. It took 600 coordinates to
get 4 seconds of film.

Later, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the people behind
the Oscars, skipped over Tron when considering visual
effects awards because they felt that using computers was cheating!

7. How did Jeff Bridges and fellow actors prepare for the movie? By playing
arcade games, of course. Indeed, there was lots of coin-op arcade games
on the set of Tron to serve as "inspiration." In an interview
with /Film
for the new Tron Legacy movie, Jeff Bridges said:

“I remember I couldn’t believe it we showed up the
first day at work and around the walls of the studio – this is
the first Tron – are video games that you have to put quarters
in just all over,” Jeff Bridges said in a recently published interview.
Bridges told the director that all those arcade games might make getting
down to work difficult.

“It did hold up the work every once in a while but it was
great fun,” Bridges continued. “I remember I got locked
into this game, Battle Zone. You familiar with that game? The tanks.
God, hours and they would come and try to yank me away. I’d say
I’m preparing, I’m preparing.”

8. Tron was a box office flop, though it became a cult
sensation and inspired a video game franchise.

9. Talking about video games, does anyone remember the light cycle
duel from the 1982 Bally Midway arcade game Tron? It was my favorite
game growing up. Ah, good times!

10. Tron Guy

Photo: Jay Maynard

Forget Jeff Bridges! If you ask the Web 2.0 crowd about Tron, most of
them will tell you about Jay Maynard or the Tron
Guy who rose to Internet fame with his homemade Tron costume.